Forums

Sarah's Shortcuts: "Don't call us; we'll call you"

Sarah McBride — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 10:58:00 GMT

Occasionally, I audition for local theater productions. Though shows are fun, auditions always make me nervous. Like most actors, I dread hearing these six little words: "Don't call us; we'll call you." (which basically mean, "You call that acting?")

When I was in college, I worked part-time for our annual fund. Speaking with alumni wasn't bad, but occasionally we had to call parents of current students. Considering the high cost of tuition, asking for more money didn't go so well. The six words were shortened to three ("Stop calling me"), but the tone of voice was pretty much the same, and it wasn't a very pleasant experience.

So what do these reflections on rejection have to do with The Raiser's Edge? Glad you asked. It's hard to run a nonprofit without the support of donors, but in order to obtain donations, you have to solicit prospective givers. Hopefully most people will respond well, but there will be some who close the door. The question is whether the door is completely shut and bolted or if they leave it open a crack, indicative of possible future donations.

As you manage your database, you may find it helpful to distinguish donors' levels of responsiveness using solicit codes. For instance, you may need to differentiate between someone who asks not to be contacted as opposed to someone who just wants to be contacted less frequently, someone who is anti-mail but is okay with receiving a call, or someone who seems like they're just having a bad day and needs a chance to refresh before you put your feelers out.

Solicit codes are conveniently located on the Bio1 tab of constituent records for quick reference. They also serve as an easy way to filter mailings and queries in order to include or exclude constituents accordingly.

By recording prospective donors' initial responses, you can adjust your approach to suit their requests. Respecting their preferences may help you budge the door open wider and shed your organization in a more positive light. Who knows? In time, you may even be able to code them with the "Call me any time!" solicit code.

Converting to Payroll 7

Daniel Dalnekoff — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 13:55:00 GMT

September is a month that I have alwasy shared a love hate relationship with. When I was a kid, it meant the end of summer vacation and thus began with a most somber feeling. On the other hand, my birthday falls in September so by default this should be one of my favorite months.

In 2008, this particlar September, something special is happening here as support for Payroll 6 draws to a close. I know that right now many of us are thinking, its early July right now and there is really no reason why I should start thinking about this with September 30th being so far off. Sorry fellow procrastinators, but this IS the time to start thinking about running the Payroll conversion. Obviously, the best thing to do is run a test conversion on the data now and work forward from there. I have included below my suggestions on steps to take right now to enjoy a smooth transition:

1. Start Today! Make a backup of your live database, and load it on a standalone machine. If you have any questions on how to do this, give us a call in Support, or just email me and I will get someone to contact you and help set this up. Or, try the following solutions from our Knowledgebase:
How to make a backup (BB94455)
How to install The Financial Edge (BB273248)

2. Once you have this standalone machine up and running with the copy of your database loaded, run through the Payroll conversion on this machine. Let it complete so you can get a feel of how long the actual conversion process may take.

3. When that completes, print out the exception report. As soon as the conversion is complete, there will be a link to click to view it. If you accidentally closed it,dont worry - you can always browse to c:\ and look for the file pyconvert.log to get this information.

4. If you get any messages or errors on the conversion log that dont make sense, contact support and we will be happy to walk through what these errors or exceptions mean, and how we can address them in the converted Payroll 7 system, or how we can address them in your current Payroll 6 system (when possible) to remove those from the live conversion.

The key here is planning, planning, planning! We want to be sure that we allow enough time to run a few test conversions. This ensures that when the date comes to go live on Payroll 7, it can be as simple as letting the conversion run, and when complete users can login, get a few things setup and start getting out Payroll checks!

Happy Payrolling.

Daniel

Non-Profit Giving Slows in First Quarter of 2008 - Donors and Revenue Decline

Melanie Milonas — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 13:30:00 GMT

The Target Analytics Quarterly Index of National Fundraising Performance for the first quarter of 2008 was released yesterday. It compares trends in key fundraising indicators for more than 70 large national organizations every quarter.

Cambridge, MA (July 1, 2008) -- Organizations in the Target Analytics Index of National Fundraising Performance generally underperformed in the first quarter of 2008 (January through March). Overall donors and revenue both declined in Q1 2008, and the declines were evident across most of the sectors in the index.

8 Webby Things That Are Now Sticking to Me

Chad Norman — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 13:25:00 GMT

Startup costs are at an all time low, ideas are everywhere, and there are millions of content-creating users out there ready to help out. It's never been a better time to be a webby guy who's into webby things. These are good times. These are the salad days.

New services, tools, and sites bubble out of the ether each week, and it's awe-inspiring to watch startups of all shapes and sizes roll down the front pages of blogs like ReadWriteWeb and TechCrunch. It's safe to say that a lot of us are finding daily use for tools like Twitter and Facebook, even though they were mere distractions a year ago. While these may be the big box sites, I've noticed the adoption rate of smaller services is picking up - at least for me.

I signup for more sites than I know I'll ever use long-term, so the exodus often occurs as the new car smell fades. I just like to see the feature sets, check out the design, and get inspired. That said, lately some of them have been sticking, and I find myself using them on a regular basis. Here are 8 webby things that are living large in my world...what are you using?

Summize
If you want to know if people are talking about your organization, company, product, boyfriend, or favorite band/show/book/game, then this is the tool for you. Summize performs real-time searches of Twitter, and should have more streams coming soon. I initially used TweetScan, but Summize has a better advanced search and is just prettier looking. www.summize.com

Flock
Relatively new to me, Flock is pulling me in and I'm using it almost daily. It's basically a pre-customized version of Firefox geared towards the social media power user. The built in sidebar manages major social sites (cool!), a media stream bar pulls in content, integrated blogging and search is handy, plus it has all the Firefox goodness. And that's nothing - 2.0 is in beta! www.flock.com

SocialThing!
This is basically a social aggregator, but I love its look and feel. Seeing all your friends in one place is really useful, and Socialthing is especially handy if you are following a lot of Flickr/YouTube/Digg/del.icio.us junkies. And while FriendFeed may have threaded discussion and rooms, my friends don't need to join Socialthing for me to follow them. This type of tool could be useful to organizations following large groups, especially if they add the ability to tag and filter. www.socialthing.com
Plurk
This site could be called a Twitter-clone, but the similarities stop there. They have implemented this amazing horizontal scrolling timeline for updates, and it simply looks gorgeous (though, I've heard that when you're following lots of people, it gets crowded). Similar to FriendFeed, threaded discussions are attached to each update - this is great, and is one of the reasons early adopters are finding the platform handy for distributed online meetings. www.plurk.com

FriendFeed
Currently the darling of the early adopter set, FriendFeed is growing by leaps and bounds because of its nimble feature set. It feels effortless to use, and makes it easy to "like" updates, join threaded discussions, and form ad-hoc groups. The "Rooms" feature is something that both Twitter, SocialThing, and Plurk (they are using "cliques") desperately need. Beth Kanter did an experiment for NPTech folks that gave us a reason to play with the features - and now we're all hooked. Twitter, you're on notice! www.friendfeed.com

Twhirl
This was one of the first Adobe AIR apps that actually stuck for me, and I use this desktop Twitter client every day. Very functional, great options, and easy to deal with - I've had no problem turning other people onto this tool. www.twhirl.org

Alert Thingy
Basically like Twhirl, but for FriendFeed. You can do most of your FF business within this sidebar desktop app. www.alertthingy.com

Snurl, TinyURL, is.gd, etc
OK, when you want to post a big, long, nasty URL into a microblogging service, you've got a problem. That's why so many short URL generator sites have popped up, and why I continue to use them. I used Snurl for a long time, but lately I've been using is.gd, as the average URLs are a few characters shorter. www.snurl.com, www.tinyurl.com, and www.is.gd.

So, what webby things are getting sticky for you?

Index of National Fundraising Performance - Q1 2008

Steve MacLaughlin — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 12:54:00 GMT

Target Analytics, a Blackbaud company, announced the latest Index of National Fundraising Performance for the first quarter of 2008. The index compares trends in key fundraising indicators from 72 organizations, including over 36 million donors and more than 66 million gifts totaling over $1.8 billion in revenue. The index findings include giving data from direct mail, online, telemarketing, events, and other fundraising channels. You can get a complete summary of the latest index findings here.

Helen Flannery, a Project Director with Target Analytics, co-authored the report and provided these comments about the findings: "Direct marketing organizations struggled this past quarter. It looks like societal benefit and international relief organizations had the most difficult time. But there are some bright spots in among the bad news; animal welfare and environmental organizations both had revenue growth in the first quarter, and animal welfare organizations also had huge increases in new donor acquisition.”

Nonprofits in the Index of National Fundraising Performance saw donor numbers in the index fall -4.0% from the first quarter of 2007 to the first quarter of 2008. Revenue fell -1.8% from Q1 2007 to Q1 2008. This was the first time in two and a half years that revenue fell, but revenue per donor grew 2.1% from Q1 2007 to Q1 2008, on top of 3.6% growth over the same period one year before.

The findings continue to show a year-over-year decline in donors from Q1 2007 to Q1 2008 that is part of a longer-term pattern. In spite of disaster-related spikes in 2005, donors were down significantly in total over the past three years. From the twelve months ending Q1 2005 to the twelve months ending Q1 2008, donors declined a cumulative -5.0%.

The index findings note that rolling index revenue has historically grown at an average of about 1% per quarter. Revenue continued to slow throughout 2007, paralleling the weakening economy, and had a steep downturn in the first quarter of 2008. When adjusted for inflation, revenue has actually declined -3.6% in real dollars over the same time period from Q1 2005 through Q1 2008.

It is important to note that this is also the first time in several quarters that increased per donor revenue could not make up for the overall donor decreases. For most organizations, overall donor declines have been due primarily to declines in new donor acquisition. New donors declined -2.3% from Q1 2007 to Q1 2008, on top of a -5.3% decline over the same period one year before.

Donor retention and reactivation rates are also playing a role in donor declines. Retention rates dropped by -2.4% from Q1 2007 to Q1 2008. The greatest decreases in retention came in first-year donor retention, which declined -6.6% in Q1 2008 over the same quarter one year before. Reactivation rates declined -5.0% from Q1 2007 to Q1 2008.

Keep in mind that the first quarter of the year typically contains the smallest number of donors for the year and donors have only had three months to renew. These factors all impact the statistics and trends. Please also note that individual payments greater than $5,000, soft credits, and matching gift payments are excluded from the index findings.

The Animal Welfare and Environmental sectors had the best performance among all the other groups. The Societal Benefit sector continued to have the biggest challenges and Human Services was essentially flat. International Relief witnessed the biggest decrease in new donor acquisition followed by the Health sector. More detailed information from the results can be found online here.

Posting Errors? Check Your Post Dates

Jennifer Maroney — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 11:28:00 GMT

If your fiscal year ended June 30, you may suddenly start receiving errors such as Period Closed or Period Not Found when posting to General Ledger. These errors happen when transactions post to a hard-closed, soft-closed, or an undefined fiscal year. To resolve the error:

Review the Batch Validation or Pre-post Report to find the transactions that failed validation. You can find the exceptions in bold under the problem transaction. If you are posting a journal entry batch, the cursor stops in the date field of the transaction causing the error message.
If the post date is incorrect, change the post date of the transaction to a valid, open fiscal year. In Accounts Payable, if the Post date field is grayed out on a paid invoice, refer to How to edit the post date on a paid but unposted invoice (15863).
If the post date is correct:
1. Verify the fiscal year was created. If it hasn't been created, add the new fiscal year (BB75700).
2. If the fiscal year exists and is soft closed (BB1798), reopen the period (BB12248).
3. If the fiscal year is hard closed (BB1798), restore to a backup (BB52243) created before the fiscal year was closed or post to an open fiscal period.
  Note: If you restore to a backup, any data entered after the backup was created will be lost.

Happy posting. Talk to you soon!

New Target Analytics White Paper: 23 Planned Giving Terms You Should Know

Melanie Milonas — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 19:02:00 GMT

Do the terms CRAT and CRUT leave you bewildered? In her latest white paper, Katherine Swank provides a glossary of planned giving terms, using practical examples, that will give you a basic working knowledge of key words common in ongoing planned gift conversations.

With more than 20 years of legal and nonprofit management experience, Katherine has raised approximately $215 million for national healthcare and public broadcasting organizations, as well as an independent law school. Prior to joining Target Analytics in May 2007, Swank was the national director of gift planning at the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, where she provided fundraising consulting services to the Society’s chapter leadership and development staff for six years.

Read her newest white papers here:

23 Planned Giving Terms You Should Know

View additional whitepapers at http://www.blackbaud.com/resources/resources.aspx.

Well, here we go...again.

Mike Rusche — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 15:30:00 GMT

Let me introduce you to "The Thread". This is the official blog site for the eTapestry product. Here at eTapestry we like to be cutting edge, however it would appear that we are getting a late start into this blogging world. While this is a new blogging site for eTapestry, I can only hope it turns out better than the last one we tried.

Back in the day (some nine years ago), we thought it would be cool to let our customers interact with each other on what was then called a "list serve". After getting it all set up, what lives in the Annals of eTapestry lore happened next. I sent it out to ALL of our customers on a Friday evening, thus automatically opting them into membership to what we thought would be one of our greatest tools in communication with our customers. A can't miss foray into social networking, which happened to be called "Threads". I went home that night dreaming of the wonderful interaction and posts between eTapestry customers and their love of the eTapestry product.

Wow, somebody wake me up!

Reality hit the next day (Saturday) as our only sales person at the time called to let me know that our list serve was running out of control. There were plenty of posts, but none like I had hoped for. Some folks who did not appreciate their automatic inclusion to membership had some rather harsh things to say, which then went to EVERY customer, who then responded with their own thoughts back to EVERY customer, who then....well you get the picture. Before I could frantically get Threads turned off, I had turned off every one of our customers from using the darn thing. A few months later, it was re-launched (without the auto membership feature and a new moderator feature) but it never took off. People joined but just sat on the sidelines and never contributed to it, and it finally faded away into the sunset.

So, here we go again, which I guess you know since you are here reading this. It is now called "The Thread" and we really want you to join in the discussions we have here and not just sit on the sidelines waiting for someone else to join the conversation. We hope to post things such as product stuff, how to's, new feature information, marketplace gossip, storytelling, info on fun eTapestry events, show/conference recaps and much more. We hope you will learn from them, discuss them and let us know what you think of them. We want this to be a growing, thriving community of eTapestry users and fans, who let us know what they are thinking.

So, check back here often to see what is new and we look forward to hearing from you.

A Trip to the License Branch but So Much More

Jay Love — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 13:27:00 GMT

Last week I had to make that splendid trip to the license branch to renew my driver’s license. Yes, I know numerous of the functions can be done online, but now that we are in Mount Comfort, I actually enjoy going north and making that right hand turn to Fortville. On that fateful day last week I happened to be the only customer in the branch at 1:10 PM. (Perhaps others have opted for the online alternative...) I still took a number and made them call it out just to see if I could catch a smile on the three ladies’ faces behind the counter. It worked – they all smiled.

Part of my reason for going to Fortville is the DQ which is right next to the huge pink elephant liquor store. No trip to Fortville is complete without my favorite a large banana milkshake. You see in Fortville they make mine with nearly two real bananas! No fake yellow sauce is going in my shake.

Now, it is time for me to reach the main point of this blog. During the renewing process of my Indiana driver’s license I was asked a simple question: "Mr. Love, would you like to continue to be an organ donor?" Obviously, I said "Of course," as I have since the option became available. However, for some reason I asked the agent a question: “How often do people say ‘yes’ and how often do they say ‘no’ to your question?” Completely to my surprise she stated that only 1 out of 10 agrees to be an organ donor at death.

Perhaps we can move the yes percentage a bit the other way. All of us are so great at volunteering and later this week many of us will donate blood. We have the chance by answering “yes” to that simple question to touch the life or lives of several people in the most amazing way. We can actually improve the quality of life for someone or in some cases allow life to continue. Just think, if 100 of us are signed up, we might be able touch in a wonderful manner 200 to 500 other lives! If you have ever had a loved one on one of the organ waiting lists you know what I am speaking of. If each of us participate and urge others to do so maybe we can double the number of people being helped. Anything is possible, you know...

Blackbaud's Next Generation of Help - Part 3

Denise Kadilak — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 12:15:00 GMT

Now that we have looked at what Blackbaud enterprise help offers our end-users and their clients - Part 1 and Part 2 - this week we will take a look at the technology driving the help system. We will also talk about how this technology serves to make our search functionality cutting edge.

Technology

As I mentioned in Part 1, the server-based help system is designed to be installed on a Web server along with the Blackbaud Enterprise application itself, which is deployed as a ClickOnce rich-client application. In the help system, HTML topics are wrapped in Microsoft ASP.NET version 2.0 code, which interacts with two Web services that call the code from the application. This technology enables us to display context-sensitive information and dynamically generate links to topics for all the functions a user has rights to on a given page of the application.

Implementation

All “pluggable” features in the application support linking with help topics: tasks, search lists, reports, data forms, pages. Pages in the application support multiple help topics: root page level, page level actions, page sections, and page section actions. Each of these items is associated with a “HelpKey” property in the code. By default, HelpKeys are specific HTML filenames of topics within the system. But end-users can modify HelpKeys (no coding necessary) and include other file types that display in a browser (doc, pdf). They can also link to fully qualified URLs. See Part 2 of my series for more information about manipulating help keys in the system.

As a result, when a user accesses our help system from any given page, a GetPageMetaData Web service builds a list of links related to functions on the page to which a user has security access. The help content for the page (usually an overview) appears, along with a scrollable pane on the left side of the screen containing the dynamically generated links, allowing users easy access to all help associated with the selected help topic.

Search

Blackbaud’s help system depends on Microsoft Indexing Service, which extracts content from files and constructs an indexed catalog to facilitate the user’s search. The service is initialized and configured for Blackbaud Enterprise help on the Web server with an install utility that is part of the application.

The Search field is available from every topic in the help system (via the ASP.NET wrapper). When a user executes a search, an ASP.NET handler issues a query against the indexing service search catalog, which is configured to include all files in the application Help directory. Each time the service indexes the catalog, changes to existing files, as well as new files are included. So end users can add their own documents or topics to the Help directory, and these files are included in search results.

The results are returned and displayed in a dynamically generated html page.

Straight Off the Press: We've Joined the PCI Security Standards Council

Sarah McBride — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 09:12:00 GMT

Yesterday we joined the Payment Card Industry (PCI) Security Standards Council as a new participating organization. For the full story, read the press release. The Council's goal is to ensure everyone involved with consumer payments protects their data. As a participating organization, we have the opportunity to work directly with them in the development of the PCI Data Security Standard (DSS) and other payment card data protection standards.

This also means we will have access to the latest payment card security standards so we can share our feedback, keep you informed, and make sure our products are in line with the standards. In the coming months, we'll continue to keep you in the loop via this blog, our support newsletters, and our new PCI-DSS forum.

Five ways to cut transaction time

Nicholai Burton — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 19:54:00 GMT

On a busy day, every second counts when making a sale. Long lines make patrons impatient and a bad enough waiting experience can even be enough to prevent someone from coming back to visit you. Lines at theme parks are so bad nowadays, my wife and I don't even bother anymore. With that in mind, here are five tips that can help you cut mouse clicks and seconds from every transaction:

Remember price types when buying several events at once
Patron Edge has a Company setting called Ignore Price Type Reordering. Set this to No, and what will happen is that when you choose a price type and tickets for the first event in a transaction, it will remember that price type for all subsequent events in the sale (if it's available). This should save at least a couple of clicks per transaction if you have a lot of patrons who buy several events at once
Use the touch screen
If you are a general admission organization, use the touch screen for sales. You can remove at least 3 mouse clicks per transaction by using the GA sales screen instead of the standard screen.
Use shortcut keys
If you are a reserved seating or mixed organization, the GA screen doesn't do you any good. But the standard sales screen in Patron Edge has a lot of keyboard shortcuts. Check out our User Guides page for a cheat sheet you can post next to the cashiers' monitors, called the Sales Keyboard Shortcut Reference Sheet.
Trim payment method options
In the payment screen, there are a lot of payment methods available by default. It's likely that you will never find yourself using several of these. To declutter the screen, go to Administration, User Setup, Profiles and turn off unused pay methods. You can see Knowledgebase solution BB198026 for detailed steps if you are unfamiliar with editing profiles.
Create a cash-only line
For popular events and big on-sales, having a line dedicated to cash transactions can help keep lines short. If it's advertised well enough, it may even prompt patrons to come visit with cash in hand, sparing them long lines and saving you money on credit card fees. While you're at it, configure your cash drawers to pop before receipts print; the cashier will have the chance to make change while a receipt prints and can then hand both change and receipt to the patron at once, shaving precious seconds from a transaction.

I'm sure you've come up with other tips and techniques to minimize wait time. What has worked best for your organization? Leave your thoughts in the comments.

Ethics: Not Just a Word at AFP

Jay Love — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 18:00:00 GMT

This week I had the honor and privilege to see just how important ethics are to the fundraising profession and more importantly to the largest association in our beloved sector. Now I have true appreciation for how the words surrounding this important subject can come to life. Here is what I am referring to in regards to the ethical guidelines of AFP.

Many of you are aware that I have been involved with the Association of Fundraising Professionals for most of my career in this sector. Currently, my involvement includes chairing the Business Partner Council and being part of the Ethics Committee. When I accepted the latter role, part of me actually thought it might be a bit boring. I must admit the reams of documentation border on that; however the people surrounding the subject more than bring it to life!

When violations to the ethical guidelines are reported, AFP reviews each one in detail. Should the matter need closer attention or perhaps sanctions need to be levied, then several steps take place. First, is a large amount of research and fact finding. The CIA might even be proud of the care taken.

A key latter portion of the process is an actual hearing where both sides can present their case. Seeing the process unfold in person was enlightening and a testament to the great care taken. I was proud to be part of the upholding of those key ethical standards. We are all fortunate to work with such outstanding and caring professionals in the form of certified fundraisers. They certainly moved my already high respect up another notch or two this week.

Comparing Apples, Oranges, and Mangos

Steve MacLaughlin — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 15:30:00 GMT

There have been a few announcements in the past few weeks and months about new constituent relationship management (CRM) software solutions for nonprofits. Each announcement has received a mix of positive, negative, and indifferent reaction from the media and blogosphere.

The landscape of nonprofit organizations and the companies that provide technology solutions for them is ever changing. But there is an important relationship between fundraising and technology that might get overlooked in all the frenzy.

As nonprofit organizations grow, they increase the complexity of their fundraising efforts. This growth requires different business processes and a more robust set of tools to meet their goals. The concept is simple but still very important because it illustrates what is happening in the nonprofit market.

Many new and smaller nonprofits might only run an annual fund combined with some initial major gift prospecting efforts. Their focus is on donor acquisition instead of retention. This in part explains why using email and online fundraising channels have become so popular among these groups. They typically have limited staff members, often outsource their IT needs, and SaaS has become a growing preference in part because it allows for a lower initial cash flow outlay.

More mature and medium-sized nonprofits have a lot more fundraising irons in the fire. They usually run annual funds and/or membership programs, prospect research, major and planned gift programs, capital campaigns, donor retention stewardship programs, engage with volunteers or activists, may sell tickets or need to support general admissions, and they leverage direct mail, telephone, web, and email channels to both communicate and raise funds. They have larger development teams and manage most of their technology needs internally. Their gift processing and accounting functions need systems that enforce audit controls, reporting capabilities need to be robust and accessible to users, and they usually work with external consulting firms to help improve business processes.

Large nonprofit organizations have highly complex fundraising activities that operate on a massive scale. They have millions of constituent records, gift data that can go into the hundreds of millions, and complex organizational structures and business rules that allow them to achieve their missions. Their fundraising efforts are usually just one part of what the organization does and programs or constituent services often constitute the bulk of their resource efforts. These large and complex nonprofits must consistently raise funds from a variety of sources including one-time gifts, recurring gift programs, major and planned gifts, and also merchandise or physical goods that require inventory management systems as part of their technology solutions. They add print, radio, and television to the multi-channel communication mix, they have much more public visibility and accountability, and everything else they do has to work on much larger scope and scale than other nonprofits.

Remember that the more complex the fundraising, the more capable the technology tools need to be. What might have worked for a smaller nonprofit will simply not get the job done for those with more complex fundraising practices. And the subtle differences that you didn't notice before quickly become glaring gaps or woefully deficient functionality. Many organizations have realized this too late and few vendors have the resources to stay ahead of the curve.

Blackbaud has been developing technology solutions for the nonprofit market for nearly three decades now. And even with all that experience, we're still constantly working to increase the capabilities of our products, services, and support. This has also meant giving growth, need, and capability options with our solutions (e.g. eTapestry, The Raiser's Edge, and Blackbaud Enterprise CRM). So it's a bit too facile to claim that any new system will do much more than meet the very basic needs of a nonprofit. You're not comparing apples to apples. You're really comparing apples, oranges, and mangos.

Most of these new systems will make a crowded low-capability end of the market even more crowded. Combine this with some interesting pricing models (or no announced pricing at all) and you have all the makings of commoditization. Not a good thing if that's the only offering from a vendor. That's a race towards the bottom, not a driving force towards innovation.

What is missing in all the buzz is a discussion about innovation in the nonprofit world. Most of the attention is on the packaging instead of what might actually be inside of the box. At the end of the day, what the tools allow you to do is going to be the difference between building better relationships with constituents or struggling to fulfill your mission.

Fundraisers that have been around for awhile have seen this all before. Does anyone remember Alchemy, Audit Trail, TracStar, Fundmaster, Impact Manager, Iowa System, CMDS, Poise, or Viking? These won't be the only here-today-gone-tomorrow systems that we'll see in the next five to ten years. Many of them started off with the same fanfare and revolutionary proclamations.

When in doubt, always look for the steak over just the sizzle. And know where you want to go before you choose what takes you there. Look for a technology partner that you can grow with and provides options along the way. The alternative is speed dating technology vendors that can't keep pace with your success. That approach can cripple your organization's ability to meet its mission.

Press Release: Blackbaud Urges Nonprofits to Review PCI Compliance

Melanie Milonas — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 15:04:00 GMT

Blackbaud Joins PCI Security Standards Council as Newest Participating Organization
Launches PCI blog and newsletter to provide ongoing updates on key issues facing the nonprofit sector

Charleston, S.C. (June 30, 2008) – Blackbaud, Inc. (Nasdaq: BLKB) announced today that it has joined the Payment Card Industry (PCI) Security Standards Council as a new participating organization. As a participating organization, the company will work with the Council to evolve the PCI Data Security Standard (DSS) and other payment card data protection standards.

Read to full press release here.

New Target Analytics White Paper: Why You Need Gift Acceptance Policies

Melanie Milonas — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 17:51:00 GMT

All gifts are not equal! Katherine Swank delves into this subject in her new white paper that explores why every nonprofit should have a gift acceptance policy and offers insight and tools for formulating a policy for your organization.

Read her newest white papers here:

Why You Need Gift Acceptance Policies

View additional whitepapers at http://www.blackbaud.com/resources/resources.aspx.

Meet the Team - Betsy

Lindsey Robbins — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 15:02:00 GMT

Name? Betsy

How long have you been at Blackbaud? 9 years

What technology from the past do you wish would make a comeback? Coleco Vision! The Smurf game to be exact.

Favorite part of technical communication? Multi-task…A LOT. There is so much to do. I love the ability to select what I am going to work on for any given day. I feel very much in control of my own day and I love it.

Products you Work On? RE, BBEC, & BBNC

Other projects you Work On? variables & schemes with content reuse, Team Foundation Server, Help files

How did you get into technical writing?: My first year at Blackbaud, I was in RE Support. I also became a software trainer that year. My whole life, I loved writing and I had my eye on the Doc Team since I started. I applied for an open position and transferred to the team in May 2000. Since then, I have gone from solely working on RE for the first 3-4 years to working on multiple products for the last 3-4 years.

What's changed about Blackbaud since you've been here? What has NOT changed is the question! I no longer drive to work on the banks of the Ashley River; I drive to Daniel Island. We use to develop 3 products...today, I lose count how many products we develop! My team’s processes have changed and our writing style has changed. Everything has changed….which I think is great! I enjoy the challenge that constant change brings. It keeps me motivated.

What hasn't changed? The people that I work with are very passionate and are all so great! That has never changed. Blackbaud continues to have a genuine heart for what we do and who we are. I love that we work for nonprofits so closely as nonprofits are a big part of my personal life. I volunteer a lot and try to be as involved in our community as possible.

What's one unique thing about you? In 1995, I worked at the golf pro shop during the week of The Masters in Augusta, GA. It was one of the greatest weeks of my life!

Breaking Down Your Donor Categories

Kevin Brunson — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 14:21:00 GMT

This past weekend my wife and I visited her grandma in the hospital. While walking through the main foyer I noticed the Hospital Foundation's annual recognition wall. Seeing the plaque got me to thinking how useful the Donor Category Report can be. The plaque broke donors into levels depending on their giving level. This is exactly what the Donor Category Report does; it categorizes donors into different buckets (Donor, Friend, Benefactor, Founder, etc.) based on giving level.

Using the Donor Category Report is simple. First we set up giving levels.
1. In Configuration, highlight Tables, and highlight Donor Categories - Table 1.
2. Click New Table Entry.
3. In the Name field, enter the giving level name (e.g., Donor, Friend, Benefactor, Founder, etc.).
4. In the Minimum amount field, enter the lowest level of giving for that particular donor category. For example, if 'Friends' need to contribute at least $250, enter $250 as the minimum for that category. Click OK.
5. Repeat these steps for each category in the table.

You can also find these steps in Knowledgebase solution BB184604.

Next, run the Donor Category Report.
1. Go to Reports, select Analytical Reports, and Create a Donor Category Report.
2. Select to run the report for all or selected constituent records, and decide on your filters (gift type, campaigns, funds, appeals, constituency, and date range).
3. On the General tab, select the format to run the report in (detail, summary, or both). The detail format shows the constituent name and the amount given. The summary format includes columns for the category name, the giving level, the number of constituents per category, the amount given per category, and the total amount given.
4. On the Format tab, highlight Detail on the left, and select your donor category table (1, 2, or 3).
5. In the Detail Order frame, select the sort order (Constituent last name or Amount given).
6. Mark the Print each category on a separate page checkbox if you want each donor category printed on a new page.
7. To include up to two optional columns on the report, go to the Format tab and highlight Optional columns.
8. Preview the report.

If a constituent's giving does not qualify him for any of the donor categories specified in the table used for the report, he is not excluded from the report. Instead, he appears in a category called Unknown. To remove 'Unknown' from the report, go back to step 4 and at the bottom of the screen select to 'Use Selected Categories Only' and move all of your categories to the right side. Doing this will remove donors that don't qualify for any of the categories.

So when your development director comes up to you requesting a list of donors for the upcoming banquet, save yourself some time and headache and let the report do the work for you! How are you taking advantage of the Donor Category feature for stewardship? Leave your ideas in the comments.

For more information about the Donor Category Report check out Knowledgebase solution BB13743.

Happy to Help - Tell Me My Options

Lindsey Robbins — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 17:26:00 GMT

Don't we just love the idea of knowing our options? I do. I like to know what I can and can't do when I customize a program, a website, or even my grocery list. I like to know what's available to me and then make my choices.

So when you find yourself working in The Education Edge, have you thought about your options? If you aren't personalizing EE, then you're missing out on some great opportunities to customize the program around your every day program needs.

Where do I access Options?
From any menu bar, select Tools, Options.

What can I do with Options?
With Options, you can customize the look of screens and establish a wide variety of default values. Select the settings that best suit your personal needs, whether you want to open records directly from the Home page or change the color of text appearing in certain grids. The program stores your options in the database, so any workstation you enter with your password uses your settings. Other users are unaffected by your settings in Options. Generally, options specify defaults that help increase the ease and speed of data entry.

Can you give me an example?

You can choose to open EE in Registrar's Office or Admissions Office and then choose the start page to be Config, Admin, Records, Mail, Dashboards, and more.
On the Color tab, you can choose the color of your required fields. Want a bright reminder to fill out a required field, try hot pink?!
On the Records Tab, select Scheduling. For Scheduling options, you can choose to prompt yourself to save if you are changing views. No more accidentally leaving a view and losing data? Hurray!

Tell me more!
Certainly. On the Education Edge User Guides page, open the Program Basics Guide, and read the Options chapter.

If you have a story of how you're using Options to improve your work processes, we'd love for you to share it in the comments.

Press Release: Blackbaud Employees Donate One Million+ Miles to Make-A-Wish Foundation

Melanie Milonas — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 14:35:00 GMT

Charleston, S.C. (June 25, 2008) – Blackbaud, Inc. (NASDAQ: BLKB) announced today a donation of more than one million miles to the Make-A-Wish Foundation®. The gift is the second largest corporate mileage contribution to the Make-A-Wish Foundation so far this year.

“We cannot thank the incredible team at Blackbaud enough for this gift, which will fund more than 20 airline tickets for children and families served by our chapter and others across the country,” said Russell Smith, president and CEO of Make-A-Wish Foundation of South Carolina, which partnered with the company on the national campaign. “The spirit and enthusiasm of Blackbaud employees led to the success of this campaign.”

Read the full press release.

Blackbaud's Internet Marketing Manager Chad Norman featured in NPT TechnoBuzz

Melanie Milonas — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 18:51:00 GMT

The NonProfit Times' tech-focused, and aptly named NPT TechnoBuzz, is doing a great job covering the latest trends and news in technology. In today's issue, Blackbaud's Internet Marketing Manager Chad Norman is featured on his favorite subject, (and admitted obsession) twitter:

From NPT TechnoBuzz:

Twitter Makes Relationships Work — Right Now

Social networking connects us like never before. We find each other, exchange information, and develop expanding networks as easily as we send email. This helps individuals, nonprofits, businesses, and governmental agencies form new kinds of relationships. That’s great, but now what? How do we put these relationships to work?

Sometimes participation in social networks can feel passive, because everyone is focused content. Friend requests, photo galleries, comments, application installations -- it’s exhausting. It’s like we’re spending all of our time creating and consuming each other’s content, instead of actually doing something.

Student Billing State-of-Mind: Fixing Fee Schedules

Jennifer Maroney — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 17:58:00 GMT

Tis the season for fixing fee schedules. Okay, so it is not like the holiday season (in many ways) or something that only happens once a year; I was trying to come up with something catchy. In reality, correcting fee schedules is not a barrel of laughs but something we all must do from time to time so I thought it would be a good topic to cover.

If the fee schedule is partially or fully generated and the new amount of the schedule is less than the generated activity, delete the generated charges until the generated amount is less than or equal to the new scheduled amount. Once this is done or if the schedule has not been generated:

Open the student's record and select the Activity tab
Select Scheduled Activity from the view drop-down menu
Highlight the appropriate schedule and click Open
Select the Billing Schedule tab and enter the correct amount.
Select the Schedule tab and click Modify Schedule
Enter the correct information for the scheduled amounts:
1. Change the frequency and number, if needed
2. Change the dates and amounts
3. Click Distribute evenly to re-distribute the amounts evenly
4. Click Load Schedule to select a default schedule
5. Click OK when the remaining amount is 0.00 and you have finished editing the schedule

Season's Greetings. Talk to you soon!

Blackbaud Client Partner Aleli Alcala featured in The Greentree Gazzette

Melanie Milonas — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 15:29:00 GMT

In the "Gazzette Minute Interview," Aleli talks about internships, fundraising and pro tennis.

Excerpt from the interview:

How do your former Michigan colleagues raise money in substantial sums?
The auto industry and Michigan's economy have taken a beating over the past twenty years. Fortunately, the University of Michigan can tap a generous worldwide alumni body, and they will soon surpass a $2.5 billion fundraising target. Among the success factors are talented and engaged alumni, highly committed volunteers, and hardworking fundraisers. It's a people-centric business.

What can Blackbaud do to help them?
Actually, I came to Blackbaud to become involved in a new constituent-centric CRM system for very large organizations. Like many fundraisers I personally was not a cheerleader for technology. In fact, I viewed much of it as a hindrance, rather than a helper. Creating a technology solution that truly helps is an enjoyable challenge. Our nine early adopters include Minnesota State Colleges and Universities and the University of Iowa. We're in version 1.5 now, and we expect to be releasing version 1.7 sometime later this year.

Send an SMS blast to patrons using free online tools

Nicholai Burton — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 13:51:00 GMT

You've used Patron Edge for a while, gotten the hang of Marketing Mailing, and are pretty good at generating lists for brochures and email blasts. But have you considered the possibility of using the system to send out an SMS blast to the mobile phones of your subscribers? In the past, if you wanted to send email to a mobile phone, you had to figure out how to format the email address properly in order to hit the phone, and of course every carrier uses a different format. There's a free service out called Flipout (by California-based company Teleflip) that lets you send an email - like 8432166200@teleflip.com - and it is sent to the phone as an SMS.

To use:

Sign up for the Flipout service
Create your list via Marketing Mailing and save it as a CSV file. Make sure that you're using the Restrictions feature of Patron Edge and only sending messages to patrons who have opted in. Receiving unsolicited text messages is one of my pet peeves, and I'm sure I'm not the only one.
Open the file in Calc or Excel and strip out any characters like parentheses or hyphens. This is easy to do with a quick Find and Replace
Append the text '@teleflip.com' to the end of the phone numbers. This can be done by adding a new column that contains only this text and then using a simple Concatenate formula. See this link for an example if you do not know how to concatenate fields
Use your favorite email merge application to send out the message.

You have to get a little creative with the CSV file, but once you've done it a time or two it becomes second nature. Are you currently sending text messages of any kind to your patrons? What are the reactions or what techniques are most effective? Leave a message in the comments.

Numbers, Numbers Everywhere

Steve MacLaughlin — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 13:28:00 GMT

The Giving USA Foundation and the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University have released "Giving USA 2008: The Annual Report on Philanthropy for the Year 2007." The annual report estimates that $306.39 billion was given in 2007, exceeding $300 billion for the first time ever.

That is a 3.9% increase from 2006 (1% adjusted for inflation) and the researchers feel the increase is largely attributable to stock market performance in early 2007, overall growth in GDP, and increases in corporate and personal income.

Individual giving increased 2.7% (a drop of 0.1% adjusted for inflation) to an estimated $229 billion dollars. Corporate gifts rose 1.9% (a drop of 0.9% adjusted for inflation) to $15.69 billion dollars. Another key growth area in the study was Foundation giving, which increased by 10.3% (7.3% adjusted for inflation) to $38.52 billion dollars. Charitable bequests also grew by 6.9% (4% adjusted for inflation) to $23.15 billion given in 2007.

The Giving USA report also looks at where donations went in 2007. Here's a breakdown:

Religious Organizations - $102.32 billion (up 4.7% / 1.8% inflation-adjusted)
Education - $43.32 billion (up 6.4% / 3.4% inflation-adjusted)
Human Services - $29.64 billion (up 8.4% / 5.4% inflation-adjusted)
Grant Making Foundations - $27.73 billion (down 9.4% / down 11.9% inflation adjusted)
Health - $23.15 billion (up 5.4% / 2.4% inflation-adjusted)
Public-Society Benefit - $22.65 billion (up 5.8% / 2.9% inflation-adjusted)
Arts, Culture, and the Humanities - $13.67 billion (up 7.8% / 4.8% inflation-adjusted)
International Affairs - $13.22 billion (up 16.1% / 12.9% inflation-adjusted)
Environment and Animals - $6.96 billion (up 10.8% / 7.7% inflation-adjusted)
Deductions carried over and other unallocated giving - $23.73 billion

A couple of important things to point out in the numbers. This is the first year that religious and faith-based organizations have raised more than $100 billion. The International Affairs category was up substantially and points to a more "worldly" perspective among millennial donors that should be kept in mind. The same could be said for Environmental and Animal Welfare organizations that also say a large increase in giving during 2007.